


All's Fair

by NamelesslyNightlock



Series: Going Down Swinging [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Bickering, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, POV Outsider, Prank Wars, Protective Loki (Marvel), Relationship Reveal, Secret Relationship, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 14:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18692947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelesslyNightlock/pseuds/NamelesslyNightlock
Summary: When the Avengers realised that Loki was engaged in a prank war, Clint knew that their only chance of limiting the fallout was to try and catch whoever was pranking him back.





	All's Fair

**Author's Note:**

> You do not want to know how close I came to giving this the title 'por qué no los dos'. (It was close.)
> 
>  **Prompt** — _"Are you serious?"_

The first time they noticed that something strange was up, Loki had painted the whole of Avengers Tower a bright, bright _red_.

Not in the poetically violent sense, thank god– he hadn’t come and murdered any of the employees (at least, as far as Clint knew, he hadn’t) and nor had he gone on a partying rampage. He hadn’t even magically changed the colour of everything, making it a permanent red that they could have bribed Stephen Strange into turning back.

Oh, no. That would be too easy.

There was a _literal_ layer of red paint over _everything_ , inside and outside, _including_ the Tower’s residents.

They all met in the kitchen that morning, with red skin that stayed stained even after a shower, feeling itchy and uncomfortable and _irritable._

“I do not understand,” Thor said, providing a wise insight to the workings of his brother’s mind, as always.

“I don’t think any of us are ever going to be able to understand that bag of cats, buddy,” Clint muttered, offering the large god a sympathetic pat on the arm. “He’s insane.”

Thor frowned. “He is not insane—”

“Yes he is,” Tony countered. He had a (red) packet of wet-wipes sitting in front of him on the (red) kitchen counter, and was rubbing away at his (red) goatee in annoyance. “This is going to be so time consuming to clean up. There’re going to be contractors in here for days. How am I supposed to get anything done with cleaners tripping over my bots in the workshop?”

“He got in your workshop, too?” Steve asked, worried. Well, they should all be worried about that, Clint supposed, since that was where all their weapons were made. If Loki had got inside, there was no telling what secrets he might have managed to uncover.

“Well, he got everywhere else, didn’t he?” Tony replied, sounding cagey.

“This is the kind of mischief that my brother would get up to while we were younger in Asgard,” Thor interjected, beginning to sound frustrated. “But I do not understand why he has chosen this colour. He has always favoured green in the past.”

“Maybe it’s because he knows our logo is red,” Clint suggested. “Or maybe he’s trying to say he has a crush on Nat.”

Nat pulled a face, and Bruce snorted.

“It’s more likely he’s just trying to get under our skin,” Bruce said. “Getting upset will only be playing into his hands. We should fix this and move on.”

“And do everything that we can to catch this bastard and give him what he deserves,” Nat snarled– and whoa, okay.

“What got into you?” Clint asked. Then he paused, remembering that the bright red jacket (and well, everything else) that she was wearing had once been black. “Uh, apart from the obvious.”

“The paint jammed my guns,” she snapped, crossing her arms. _“And_ it’s ruined the dress that I bought _yesterday_.”

Oh, man, Clint hadn’t even checked his weapons yet. This was going to suck– and if the paint had ruined them, then Loki was going to go _down_.

“Why would he even do this?” Clint whined.

“I told you,” Thor insisted. “ _Mischief_.”

“He hasn’t done anything this harmless since he first came to Earth,” Steve pointed out.

“This isn’t harmless,” Natasha snapped.

“Well, whatever the reason,” Tony said loudly, “Bruce is right. We just need to sort it out as quickly as we can without playing into his hands.”

There was a fair amount of grumbling at that, but not enough to constitute an argument. Tony abandoned his attempts to clean his goatee and pulled out his phone instead – which, well, yeah, that was red too – probably to start sorting out the clean-up crews.

It really was going to take a while, but there was nothing they could do about that.

So Clint, of course, went straight back up to his room and made a direct line for his bow, pulling it from its case and running his hands over it, checking for damage. It was… well, it _mostly_ looked fine, but Clint didn’t want to risk damaging it by unfolding it when there was paint in the hinges. Nat’s anger had made him wary.

Deciding that the best course of action was to go to the guy who had made the bow in the first place, Clint headed back downstairs to find Tony. He wanted to see if the inventor had some heavy-duty cleaner that would be enough to remove the paint without damaging the bow itself, since, you know. He didn’t think his usual cleaners and oils were quite going to cut it, this time.

When he found Tony in his penthouse, the guy was still on his phone, though he was smiling far too much to be talking to a cleaning contractor about removing red paint from the entirety of Avengers Tower.

And the conversation sounded almost… teasing.

“Is this because I insulted your fashion sense?”

Although, knowing Tony, maybe he _was_ talking to a cleaner.

Clint waved to get his attention, and received a nod in response and two fingers to indicate that Tony would be done in a couple of minutes. So he leaned against the bar to wait.

“Okay, so you’ve proven your point,” Tony said, his voice firm despite the grin that remained in place. “Really though. Isn’t this a little middle-school for you?”

There was pause while Tony listened to the person on the other end, and then his eyes narrowed.

“Oh yeah?” Tony hissed. “Challenge accepted.”

With that, he pulled the phone from his ear and hung up with a very dramatic stab at the end-call button with his index finger, and then he turned to Clint with a wide smile.

“Hey Legolas, what’s up?”

Clint held out his bright red bow with a pout.

“Ah.” Tony tilted his head. “Yeah, that doesn’t look great.”

“So you can fix it?”

“Of course I can, who do you take me for?” Tony rolled his eyes and reached out to take it. As always, Clint felt a _little_ reluctant to hand over his weapon– but then, it was similar to handing over a puppy to the vet, he supposed. You don’t want to leave them, but you know it will only help in the long run.

Ha. Yeah. He wasn’t overly attached or anything like that, no way.

(Well… at least he didn’t flirt with it like Tony did his suits.)

—

Clint had his bow back by the next day, and the clean-up crews had made great progress. Over the next half week it wasn’t uncommon to come across someone with their bright yellow vest stained red, swearing about the impossible task that Tony Stark was paying them to complete.

All in all, it wasn’t so bad. They got to hear newsreaders disparaging them for being an eye-sore rather than the usual complaints about destruction of public property, which was nice for a change, and other than the _red_ and a few fragile, moving parts, nothing had been damaged. (Although, Thor was quite reasonably upset when he opened a box of Pop-Tarts to find that the snacks were red, even inside the packaging.

But, the peace didn’t last forever, and it was only two days after they had all woken up red that they got the alert about Loki attacking Central Park.

Right. Back to the old routine, then.

Central Park was, after all, The Place for villain attacks. It seemed like bad guys loved it– which made absolutely no sense, because tactically, the grounds were shit. Maybe they just liked being surrounded by nature while they were destroying things.

Whatever.

Point is that they were all expecting it to be normal. To go in, find Loki making some kind of trouble, scare him off and then be home in time for tea.

Except, when they arrived at the Park it was to find that Loki was—

Well.

He was…

“Hey guys, is Loki… not Loki?” Clint asked incredulously.

Loki was, in fact, a _statue_ – or rather, an automaton, made of metal and looking incredibly lifelike, save for the fact that it was about twenty-five feet tall.

“Whoa,” Tony said. “That _is_ impressive.”

“Impressive or not, it’s causing hell for the gardeners,” Bruce pointed out, gesturing to where a good stretch of grass was peppered with large, heavy footprints.

“I suppose I’ll get out my credit card,” Tony muttered.

Although, to be honest, the automaton wasn’t actually doing all that much damage. It was stomping about and making loud noises, but other than that, it was actually rather.... Well, considering who it looked like anyway, it was being downright _peaceful_.

Clint narrowed his eyes. “Do we think this is… actually Loki?”

“Of course it is,” Tony insisted. “Look at it, that’s a tribute to his ego if I ever saw one—”

“This does not seem like Loki’s doing,” Thor muttered, his eyes narrowed—

And then, as if for the incredibly unlikely purpose of proving Thor all correct, Loki appeared on the scene in a shower of bright green sparks, his arms crossed and his expression incredibly annoyed.  

“It doesn’t even _look_ like me!” Loki exclaimed– though Clint couldn’t have told you _who_ he was talking to.

“It sure does, Reindeer Games,” Iron Man replied as he swooped over to Loki, talkative as always. “Although, maybe the person who made it should have painted its cheeks red, given how much you seem to like the colour. And then your automaton would look just like a perfect blushing br—”

Loki swept Iron Man _and_ the rest of the Avengers aside with a swipe of his hand – which, yeah, thanks a heap for making him angry, Tony, now Clint was going to have bruises for _weeks –_ and then he stormed up to the automaton and slammed his hands against one of its feet.

The automaton raised its arms in the air and tilted up its head– and then it froze, turning into a proper, non-moving bronze statue. And then… there it stood. A twenty-five-foot-tall statue of Loki in the same pose as Christ the Redeemer, slap bang in the middle of Central Park, right next to the boathouse.

Oh, the wedding photos over the next few days until it could be removed were no doubt going to look _fantastic_.

Great. They were probably going to get in a fair amount of trouble for this.

And, of course, right when Clint had _that_ thought—

“The person who did this had better be shaking in their armour,” Loki said, staring around at the Avengers, his gaze seeming to linger on each one. “Oh, you are going to _suffer_.”

“Why is he looking at us?” Clint asked, hissing to Thor.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Thor asked, his voice bright. “My brother is at war.”

And as Loki vanished in a shimmer of bright green magic, Clint thought that those were possibly the most terrifying words that he had ever heard.

—

Apparently, war is a bit of a _thing_ on Asgard. Whoever would have guessed.

They liked to fight, they liked to conquer worlds– it was the same set-your-teeth-on-edge imperialistic bullshit that Clint had been trying not to respond to since Thor had moved into the Tower.

But, what he hadn’t known before was that apparently, when there is no _actual_ war going on to sate their desires, Asgard like to battle it out in other ways. Thor said they had hundreds of games and duels and _competitions_ in which someone could be challenged—

And Loki, apparently, had been banned from almost all of them.

Thor talked about it with a bit of a sad down-turn to his mouth, telling them all about how Loki’s skill wielding seiðr had always been viewed as _cheating_ , and that no one would willingly engage in any kind of war with him, whether it be a prank war or even simple sparring.

“It is a shame that he was not at least permitted to continue flyting though, as he is the most skilled flyter that Asgard has ever been blessed with.” Then Thor frowned. “Of course, that was _why_ he was banned. His insults were so harsh, they reduced an entire banquet hall to tears and almost started a war between four of the Nine Realms.”

Tony had been listening with rapt attention, and he snorted at that statement. “Sounds to me like you guys are just sore losers, Point Break,” he said– and, despite himself, Clint found that he almost agreed.

But, _anyway_. The point is that Thor was adamant that Loki was engaged in a literal prank war with someone, and that it was going to end _messy_.

“It has likely been going for some time, and we only noticed it in its later stages,” Thor said. “These things do tend to escalate.”

There was a bit more discussion after that, but it basically all boiled down to the fact that there was nothing they could do to stop it. They couldn’t stop Loki– they had tried so many times before, after all, and had long since taken to just stopping his plots before they could come into fruition and then simply chasing him off until the next time. He never really hurt anyone, after all.

Their only chance would be to catch the person who was on the other side of all this– but they didn’t even know where to start. So, they agreed to just wait, to let this play out and hope that things would turn back to normal eventually when either Loki or his opponent rose victorious from their war.

—

After the automaton, things just started to get _weird._

The response to Central Park was a flock of ravens large enough to block out the sun. They circled the top of Avengers Tower (because where else would a flock of ravens be, right?) to the point that there wasn’t even _any_ sunlight getting into Tony’s penthouse, and the tower looked like it had been engulfed in a black cloud à la sad cartoon characters.

The response to _that_ wasn’t something they saw, but they did see the fallout– because when next they saw Loki, he was missing his helmet and ranting something about _robot squirrels_ to an extent that it was not difficult to work out what had happened.

The following morning, and the whole _city_ had suffered from a sudden and unexpected pandemic where every single door would only open in the _opposite_ direction to what they had before – which was extra frustrating for the Avengers, as it meant that an elevator door with the two directions pushing against each other would not work at all. Clint didn’t mind too much, since he mostly hung out in the common floor that day– but Tony complained for hours about the number of stairs between his workshop and the penthouse.

After that, every single device with a speaker within– well, within pretty much the whole city again, actually, began to play _Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer_ and could not be stopped, not until the device ran out of battery entirely. (And god, but had Clint been glad for his hearing aids that day. Not everyone has the option of simply turning off their ability to hear things, but sometimes, it could be a godsend.

And, then you know.

It only got worse, really.

The city being invaded by a horde of snakes was answered with a horde of Furbies.

One day it was discovered that every single cheeseburger in the city contained a live cockroach when bitten into (even if thoroughly checked) and then the next morning every single speck of tea in the whole state of New York had been bought out by someone anonymously so that the whole city underwent a shortage.  

And as the pranks grew more and more ridiculous, the epicentre of Loki’s tricks was not difficult to work out.

The target, it seemed, was Avengers Tower– and that meant that suddenly, each and every one of Clint’s own team was a suspect.

Honestly, it could have been any of them.

But.

“Well, we know who the most _obvious_ suspect is,” Clint said at the next Avengers’ team meeting, narrowing his eyes right at the only Asgardian in the room.

When Thor noticed the stares of literally every Avenger present, he glanced behind him and then widened his eyes in hurt. “It is not _me_ ,” he denied.

“Oh yeah?” Clint asked, crossing his arms. “Asgard’s got walking metal statues, I’ve seen one.”

“That statue of Loki was not like the destroyer at all,” Thor countered, shaking his head. “It was made of bronze, which is used most often for figures like those by Midgardians.”

“I can’t believe you thought that it was Thor,” Tony muttered under his breath. He had his phone in his hands, and didn’t really seem to be paying attention to the conversation, taping away in the midst of a conversation of his own.

He _did_ notice the silence, though, and when Tony looked up it was to find everyone staring at _him_.

“What?” Tony asked quickly. 

“You almost sounded like that was offensive, Tony,” Nat said, her words slow and purposeful. “Now, what reason would you have to be offended by us thinking that Thor could have created the Loki automaton?”

Tony blinked, frowned– and then his eyes widened. “Uh…”

“Oh Tony,” Steve sighed, his gaze going to the ceiling. “Please tell me that you didn’t.”

Tony winced, in an _oops_ kind of way, and then he tapped once on his phone and held it to his ear. “Hi honey,” he said, quick but sweet. “I’m afraid they’re on to us—”

Before he could say anymore Nat dove forward, attempting to steal the phone straight out of his hands. Tony made a grab for it but missed, and then it went clattering across the floor—

And then the room _exploded_ into a blaze of green.

Clint couldn’t see anything but emerald, and all he could hear was a grunt, a clash of metal, the smash of something hard against a wall—

And then, above all of it, he heard Tony’s voice shouting—

“Loki, _no!”_

The scuffle did not last much longer, the blinding light clearing away, the green curling back into the figure that had certainly _not_ been in the room before.

And then Clint was up and snarling, because Loki had Nat by the throat. She didn’t actually seem to be struggling through, as if she were managing hold herself up enough with her hands on Loki’s forearm to keep the pressure from her throat– as if Loki weren’t actually squeezing all that hard.

Loki’s eyes were darting about the room, as if he were looking to see if a fight was incoming. And that seemed ridiculous, because hey, _he_ was the one who had come barging in uninvited—

“Loki!” Thor bellowed, Mjölnir already in hand, taking a step forward. “You shall release her at—”

“Thor, it’s okay,” Tony said, holding up his hands. “He’s not going to hurt anyone.”

“Am I not?” Loki said, arching a brow. “And here I thought that you had called for my help.”

Tony didn’t say anything. He merely crossed his arms and _waited_ , and he might as well have been tapping his foot for all the impatient vibes that he was giving off. Clint totally expected that he was about to get a dagger to the gut at _least,_ but instead, Loki let go of Nat and shoved her toward Thor, sending the both of them sprawling.

“I thought you said that they were on to us,” Loki hissed, glaring at Tony with a heat that didn’t exactly seem angry– or at least, not angry at _Tony_.

“I meant that they found out about our _war_ —”

“Then perhaps you should have _said that_ —”

“I was going to! But then she stole my phone—”

“And all I heard was your phone being thrown to the ground, how was I supposed to know that you weren’t being attacked?”

Tony’s expression turned soft at that, and as the Avengers looked on in complete and utter shock, Tony lifted his hand and brushed his fingers along the line of Loki’s cheek.

“I love that you came to help me,” Tony whispered. “And I love that—”

“No _fucking_ way,” Clint said, cutting straight into the middle of their conversation the very _moment_ that he came to the realisation. “Are you _serious?”_

Tony didn’t even bother trying to deny it, the asshole. He simply turned and stepped even closer to the trickster god– and as Loki’s arms wrapped around Tony’s waist from behind, they both stared out at the Avengers with identical expressions that said _Well? What are you going to do about it?_

“Tony,” Steve said with a long-suffering sigh, his expression almost entirely unchanged from before Loki had appeared in the room. “Just... Are you sure he’s not going to hurt us? Or _you?”_

“He won’t,” Tony promised, though the effect was somewhat lost by the way that Loki was rolling his eyes over Tony’s shoulder. “And yes, Clint,” Tony continued, turning to him with determination burning in his gaze. “I _am_ serious about him, more serious than I have been about anyone. In fact, only a couple weeks ago, Loki—”

“I don’t even care about that, you can fuck who you want,” Clint cut in, waving a hand dismissively at that before focusing his gaze into a glare. “Do you know how long it took me to get the red– fuck it, the _Iron Man_ _red_ paint out of my toothbrush—”

“And my _guns_ ,” Natasha growled.

“That one wasn’t even me,” Tony complained. “All I did was say that Loki should maybe try changing up his colour schemes a little every now then, because I’m sorry but I’m not going with a _black and green cake—_ ”

Clint didn’t give Tony the time to finish his sentence. “The number of times I walked into a door—”

“ _My cheeseburger—”_

“The Furbies were cute until they ate my slippers—”

“While we’re complaining, those robotic squirrels really did scratch up my helmet, Anthony,” Loki said.

“You’re not even part of this,” Tony complained, turning his head to glare up at his– boyfriend? Lover? Partner? “No wait, you _are_ , this is your fault– _hey_ , why aren’t you taking all these complaints, you started this—”

“I did _not—_ ”

“I don’t care who started it, you’re both going to have to answer for the _three hours_ it took me to explain to the mayor why there is now an immovable statue in the middle of Central Park,” Steve groaned.

“Loki wanted it in the wedding pictures,” Tony said weakly, and Loki once again rolled his eyes.

“So _you_ made the automaton?” Thor said brightly. “You are correct, that was truly impressive.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Tony said, then he turned his glare to Loki. “It is so nice to know that there was _one_ person on my side in this ordeal—”

“I’m not supposed to be on your side, that was the point,” Loki replied. “It is war, after all.”

And then a sly smirk made its way onto Tony’s lips. “I thought the whole point was so that you could _stay_ by my side?”

Loki softened at that, and god, but that was weird to see– his eyes going a bit rounder, his lips turning up in a smile that was actually _nice_. And then Loki leaned down, and pressed a kiss to Tony’s cheek. Tony turned into it with a sigh, his whole body relaxing.

“I guess pretty much all of the pranks were harmless,” Tony said lightly, and Loki gave his agreement in another press of lips to the top of Tony’s head.

Fuck. It was almost _cute_.

Okay, so that was how Clint knew he must have been going insane.

And, then.

“Not all, Tony,” Bruce said dangerously. “You do realise that I ran out of tea this week.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony said, wincing. “Maybe that one _was_ a little uncalled for.”

“Who was the winner of the challenge?” Thor asked, his expression bright with the excitement of a die-hard fan asking for the football score.

“We have not concluded it yet, Thor,” Loki replied. “The challenge is ongoing.”

Everyone groaned– except, of course, for Thor.

“And the prize?” he asked eagerly.

Loki pressed his lips together into a tight line, though whether he was trying to restrain a laugh or if he was actually reluctant to answer, Clint wasn’t sure.

In the end, it was Tony who drew in a deep breath and said– “Winner doesn’t have to wear the dress for the wedding.”

There was a pause.

Then.

“ _What?”_

Clint couldn’t say which of them made the exclamation– it could have been any of them, could have been all of them. Could have been _him_.

It wasn’t Thor, though, because his exclamation was _ecstatic_.

“Brother, you are to be _wed?”_

“Yes, Thor, that is generally what a _wedding_ entails,” Loki replied sarcastically.

“Oh, but this is _great_ news! Wait until I tell mother—”

“Mother already knows,” Loki replied. “She is the one arranging the wedding.”

Thor looked so thrilled it seemed like his grin was threatening to split his face in half.

“As glad as I am for you Tony,” Bruce said, actually sounding like he meant it, “Why… why is it that one of you needs to wear a dress?”

“The dress is an important symbol in Asgardian weddings, or something,” Tony said with a shrug. “Something to do with traditions.”

“I still do not see a problem. Loki is a shapeshifter,” Thor said, his grin still firmly in place and not looking likely to dissipate any time soon. “He could become a woman to perform the ceremony—”

“Even if I were to get married while a woman, brother, I think I would still prefer to wear trousers,” Loki said firmly. “Dresses are so ungainly.”

Clint had _of course_ never worn a dress himself, but he had to agree that ungainliness did seem to be the case. He’d seen Nat outperform some of SHIELD’s most dangerous enemies while in a dress, but given the choice she always preferred trousers.

But if it was a culture thing with an actual bond or whatever then Clint supposed he could respect that. Really, though, their complete lack of ability to just make a decision reminded Clint of that advert. You know, the one with the tacos and the little girl.

Honestly, if they couldn’t decide then they should just—

Wait a second—

And _oh shit_ but did Clint just have the single _best_ idea ever.

“So the problem is that you can’t decide, right?” Clint said, glancing between them.

“Yeah,” Tony said slowly. “So?”

“So… why don’t you just _both_ wear a dress?”

Tony blinked. Loki tilted his head. And then the pair were staring like they had never seen each other before.

“That would be acceptable,” Loki said slowly.

“Actually, yeah,” Tony said, his smile becoming excited. “And that way, we can have a red dress _and_ a green dress—”

“So then the cake can be the white that you wanted—”

“And the napkins don’t even matter, Loki, we’re sorted!”

They simply grinned at each other then, seemingly not even realising that there were other people in the room. And without warning, Tony grabbed Loki’s wrist and dragged him through the door, proclaiming for everyone to hear—

“Come on, Lokes, we’re going shopping!”

Clint was pretty sure the rest of the Avengers were stunned, but he was feeling pretty smug, actually.

“Clint,” said Nat, turning to face him with a fierce gleam in her eye. “That was masterful.”

“Aw, thanks.”

“You’re going to make sure you bring a video camera to the wedding, right?” she asked, leaning closer and smirking conspiratorially.

“Oh, you bet,” Clint replied. “I am going to make sure that I document _every moment_. For the sake of future nostalgia, of course.”

“Yes,” Nat sat, joining him in his laughter. “Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tony and Loki both wear a dress and heels to their wedding with complete and utter confidence, and they both think they look absolutely gorgeous. So Clint’s plan doesn’t quite work in the end, but he’s happy nonetheless that Tony seems to be having the best of days. (But, obviously, that doesn’t stop him from planning a revenge prank war with rest of the Avengers. They’re not going to forgive and forget that easily.)


End file.
